What do snails really need?

[shazlew]

Does anyone know what a snail really needs in its diet?
What should it consist of?
We look at dog and cat and even rabbit food and even them bags of bug grub tell you blah blah % of this and that but what about snails!
No offence meant to you snail food sellers but i wonder what it is that makes a good snail diet!
For instance a while back was looking at Daz's site thinking what should i buy to make a snail mix i couldn't think so ended up buying his snail mix and a few extras!
See when you buy for a cat or something you get a lil label saying contains
Typical Analysis/100g: Protein 28.0%, Oil 12.0%, Fibre 2.0%, Ash 7.0%, Copper 18mg/kg, ...and so on!
What about with a snail?
Does anyone know or is it just a gamble?
Sorry to baffle you all but things like this make me wonder

[Bumblebee]

I don't own any snails, but i would not give them mixed food. one reason could be that these mixes dosn't exist in petshops here in sweden, not as far as I know....
But when I get my snails, I'm buying real vegetabels for them, not some boring mixes from a petstore. Because then i'll know for certain that my snails get what they need.
Like some catfoods contains like carrots...hello? Cats cant pick up the nutrion from the carrots, they just pass right through the cat.

[gabi]

I am sure, Paul knows more about this. But I think, he said a time ago, that nobody knows yet for sure, what they really need.
I am keeping some different species and I give them a various died of different veggies, fruits, seeds, dead crickets, grasshoppers....and selfmade snail-mixes (as there are no snail mixes to have in our petshops and the owners there would rolling on the floor, if I would ask for something like that .

Me personally thinks, that a snail "knows" what she needs and I have never seen a snail eating to much on something. If we offer them regulary a various diet, I am sure, no snail suffers on malnutrition.

Kind regards,

Gabi

[Paul]

Gabi is correct as far as I know. I've never managed to find any information on snail health. It's not easy to search for because there are plenty of articles on how snails can help human health medicinally. But no-one seems to want to know how to keep a snail healthy. We have a good idea of how to kill them and what chemicals are toxic, but nothing in the way of actual nutrition, other than a few concerns over oxalates etc.

Some snails live on one plant type of plants for their entire lives, others like Achatinidae are more scavanger like and will eat anything they find including faeces, fungus, animal carcasses and fresh and fermenting food. We also know because of fulica pest status that the worst offenders of crop damage tend to be young snails, it seems as they get older they look more and more for detritus rather than vegetation.

I don't think mixes are boring for snails if you feed as part of a varied diet. Use it as a treat and a nutrition boost, in case they're missing something from a diet of fruit and vegetables. There are lots of snails that seem to prefer the mix, and vice versa. They're made from cereals really, with calcium added, nothing unusual but the various seeds like hemp etc. are very nutritious.

All we can do is feed a good variety of food and keep looking into it. I think there is definitely an argument for meat protein, I think used a little would certainly help to ensure they are getting a wider spread of nutrition. But I'd need some convincing of its efficacy for health problems because there would need to be proper controlled experiments, if that is even possible. But I certainly hope it is useful. Only time will tell.

[craftysnails]

dead crickets? I didnt know you could feed them dead crickets! I got some as I bought alive crickets for our tarantulas. we usually removed dead crickets and threw away as they kept in crickets house.